An efficient adaptive methodtoperform dynamic voltage and frequency management (DVFM)forminimizing theenergy consumption ofmicroprocessor chips ispresented. Instead of using afixed update interval, theproposed DVFM system makes useofadaptive update intervals foroptimal frequency and voltage scheduling. Theoptimization enables thesystem to rapidly track theworkload changes soastomeetsoft real-time deadlines. Themethod, whichisbasedon introducing the concept ofaneffective deadline, utilizes thecorrelation between consecutive values oftheworkload. Inpractice because the frequency andvoltage update rates aredynamically setbased on variable update interval lengths, voltage fluctuations onthe powernetwork arealso minimized. Thetechnique, which maybe implemented bysimple hardware andiscompletely transparent fromtheapplication, leads topowersavings ofupto60%for highly correlated workloads compared toDVFM systems based onfixed update intervals.